Tuesdays with Dorie: Traditional Madeleines

I’d been crossing my fingers that Tara of Smells Like Home would choose a cookie for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. Then Tara picked Dorie’s Traditional Madeleines–score! I know that a madeleine is really cake in cookie’s clothing, but after all the hard-core desserting I’ve been doing (and still have left to do this month), I was happy to have something that’s just a sweet bite.

I have fond voluntary (as opposed to Proustian-ha!) memories of these little scalloped-shaped cuties. Actually my memories are quite recent, as we made madeleines as part of the petits fours plate at the restaurant I last worked for. That recipe uses browned butter and almond flour, and we made a variety of flavors, from lavender to lemon-thyme, depending on what we felt like or what we had available.

Dorie’s recipe is flavored with lemon zest, and even though she doesn’t instruct you to brown the melted butter, I went ahead and did it anyway. Browned butter just has such a beautiful flavor, I used my non-stick mini madeleine pan (which is the only one I have, and trust me, you still need to grease it well) to bake them off, and made half of Dorie’s recipe. Rather than sprinkling them with powdered sugar before serving, I tossed the still-warm madeleines in some finely ground vanilla sugar.

I will say that these make very good little lemony tea cakes. They are soft and light and tasty (do bake them right when you are ready to eat them though, as they stale quickly). But I have one gripe. If we are talking about “tradition” here, then madeleines are supposed to have a bump on their backsides. We learned in culinary school that the bump is desirable, and our instructor said that madeleines are often presented with their bums in the air (rather than scalloped side up) to show them off. Dorie calls for chilling the batter for at least three hours to help form this bump. The same day I made the batter, I baked up half of it after letting it chill for several hours. No bump. The next day, I baked up the remaining batter (it had now been chilling overnight). Two madeleines had the bump…the rest didn’t. Ah well…after conferring with other TWDers, this seemed to happen to most everyone. And as Ulrike pointed out, even the Traditional Madeleines pictured in Dorie’s book don’t have bumps!

Yours look like they could be on a magazine cover! That first photo is THAT beautiful!
I do agree with you about the bump/hump or no hump. Some of Dorie’s recipes have been inconsistent to say the least.
I always question the recipes now.

Those remind me of the fresh apple cider donuts with their sprinkling of cinnamon sugar that we get every year at apple picking. I’m sure they aren’t even close in taste, but they remind me of that happy, warm, sugary event.

As usual, dainty, precious and perfect! …plus the little whimsical touch of granulated sugar adds that little “je ne sais quoi” that suits your confections so well!
I’m glad you have found my translator of use this time! Not great huh? but it’s better than for me to have to write a bilingual blog (simply too much work!) Nevertheless, I’ll try to keep in mind that more English people might be reading my Tuesday posts, and will try to make it less technical and perhaps more surprising next time!
GREAT JOB! Bravo! …and thanks again for passing by, I really appreciate people that have your “open mindeness”!!!🙂